Forum:Who got the "Big Boss" emblem on MGS4?
Q1- How many times did you play the game before you got it? Q2- How many attempts at getting it did it take? Q3- What time did you get? Q4- What did it take to get this emblem? Q5- What parts of the game really frustrated you or made you think it was impossible to do? My answers: 4 2 4:14:59 A lot research! The tank escape in Act 1, especially after the first section/the bike ride...until only the final leg proved really hard to get past, if not impossible/the Screaming Mantis fight...until I worked out a successful strategy for her/the final fight with Liquid. You? Dfle3 08:41, April 20, 2012 (UTC) :Q1- Several times, can't remember exactly how many. :Q2- 1, as I just quit and reloaded the game if things didn't go as planned. :Q3- 4:38:59 :Q4- If at first you don't succeed... :Q5- The bike chase was frustrating, though it was made a little easier with stun grenades. I didn't even realize you could take cover behind Big Mama until I tried going for the Big Boss emblem. :Also, don't forget to sign your comments. :--Bluerock 12:37, April 18, 2012 (UTC) M'kay..."Add topic" means "Reply"...be good if this site didn't have it's own words for common website activities! Can't see your reply as I post this either...that feature would be good for replying to comments...other sites do that. Would have like to have edited my OP as it looks different to how I typed it in...all my numbers are not on separate lines, like they were when I pressed "Publish"...a WYSIWYG system would be good as far as that goes. Could I not edit my OP as I didn't leave a sig? If yes, I'd be happy to repost my thread and have you delete this one. As for your replies...yeah, I use the old reload strategy myself...did find the game annoying in that you couldn't save anywhere you liked, or had no quicksave functionality...but it did force me to get my act together in beating the final leg of the bike ride...I lucked upon a successful strategy for that, I think...a replay on Hard will confirm if I've got it right...I'm doing the grand Chicken run now, on Hard...bit of a grind...even more so if my play up to having to Continue is wiped from the memory. re clinging to Big Mama...I didn't get the impression that that actually works...especially not when you try and get by the two turret operators working in tandem in the final leg. I eventually gave up on my strategy of playing a life recovering track on my iPod as the amount of health you regained couldn't compensate for having a poor strategy here. Can't believe you didn't have trouble with other parts of the game! How much help did you have to get to complete the game? I mean for finding strategies to get you to acquire the Big Boss emblem? Dfle3 07:55, April 19, 2012 (UTC) :Concerning the "add topic" button, I am also a little confused about Wikia adding this, since surely pages like this should just be about a single topic anyway? I would just use "edit" from the drop down box beside it, as you will see other user's comments that way. You should then be able to edit your original post (I assume that's what you mean by OP). :We have a WYSIWIG feature with the Preview button on the right. To start a new line of text, you have to create a blank line first. :Back to Big Boss Emblem strategies, I did find taking cover behind Big Mama to be of limited use, but it did help somewhat. I just had to be lucky in taking out one of the gunners with a tranq weapon, which is no easy feat (I think I had a little charge left on the Solar Gun). I didn't really seek out a lot of online help for getting past difficult areas, I just did a lot of trial and error most of the time. However, for the start of Act 5, I did use a strategy given in the MGS4 online podcast to avoid the FROGS, on Outer Haven's deck. --Bluerock 09:49, April 19, 2012 (UTC) I got the impression that maybe you had your own idiosyncratic system on this board or something. I think Wikipedia automatically attributes edits/entries to the person who logged in and made those changes. Can't you do that too? It's less of a pain than the sig system you have here in any case...easy to forget. I don't see why different sites have to reinvent the wheel...there are perfectly easy and understandable conventions for using a site...a pain to have to learn new ways to do stuff. For me, "Add topic" and "New topic" mean exactly the same thing. On this site "Add topic" means "Reply". Be good if the site said what it means! Thanks for the tips re formatting. Just noticed that I could edit your mistakes...e.g. first two letters of a word in a caps...that's a bad system...why allow anyone to edit anybody elses' comments? Surely that's open to abuse, yeah? re paragraph breaks...when I posted my five questions here, I pressed "Enter" to have them on separate lines. Other times I've pressed "enter" twice to have a space between lines. In one case there was no separation of lines...after pressing "enter" once...or there is a chasm between paragraphs...after pressing "enter" twice...sheesh...I just want a normal looking post! It goes from one extreme to another! re game...I needed help to defeat Vamp. The whole Syringe strategy was lost on me as I had never used it up to that point. Got that from the official guide. Found the Frogs in Outer Haven straightforward...you learn by rote...but I did follow the guide's advice eventually about using the left hand side...you don't have to worry about the Frog up high from that side. In order to get the Big Boss emblem I looked at online vids to see how they moved quicker from A to B or with certain boss fights. My first attempt at the BBE gave me a time of around 6:10:xx. Really needed to seek out better methods...can still learn some legitimate faster methods, I think. re trial and error in game...that's my main criticism of this game...there's just too many variables to make this process any fun...it's good when you can work it out, but often you're just none the wiser. I lucked upon my bike ride strategy. Also, finding the grand Chicken run a massive grind too...it's like the anti-Big Boss emblem...it's really hard/grinding to be THAT bad! Maybe regret going for it now! Dfle3 08:41, April 20, 2012 (UTC) :"Add topic" doesn't mean "reply"; it's for if you want to make a new topic on the same subject. Use "edit" if you just want to add a comment to the discussion, from the drop down arrow beside the button. The wiki does log all edits made by all users in the page's "history," again accessed from the drop down arrow. However, such a page does not show clearly who has edited what, without going to some effort by navigating through all the sequential changes, so a signature (which includes a time stamp) is used for this purpose. Just "Shift" and four key strokes, nothing to it really. You will get the hang of Wikia's particular style after a little while. Just take a look at some of Wikia's help pages if you struggle with the formatting. While editing other people's comments is potentially open to abuse, we have not had any significant problems with this; most users here aren't that silly, and these malicious edits can easily be spotted and reverted. :Back to the topic at hand, I did actually check into how much time you should ideally complete each Act within, in order not to have to waste time having to go through the game again. As for the other emblems, I am not too enthused about wanting to obtain them all, as there is no benefit for doing so (except satisfaction I guess, but I simply don't have the time). For Vamp, having never used the syringe during the entire game, I also did not know to use it in the battle in my first playthrough. However, after "killing" him twice, I just called Otacon (I think) and he told me what to do. :--Bluerock 12:01, April 20, 2012 (UTC) ::EDIT: Having had a quick glance at Wikipedia, they actually use exactly the same system as we do here, for talk pages and discussions. --Bluerock 12:09, April 20, 2012 (UTC) I'm used to systems where there might be a 'parent' thread and people can Reply to it and change the header in their reply, which becomes a sub-parent thread. If you Reply to the post with a new header, it goes under the new header, and if you reply to to main thread, it is not subsumed under the new headed post. And you don't have to add your sigs...the system 'knows' who you are and adds those details itself. I'm reasonably sure Wikipedia knows who you are too, so you don't have to add sigs...it's automated. I just think it's simpler and better...right now I'm looking at the entire thread and can edit anyone's comments. I'd rather that only the comment I am replying to can be seen by me and that I can't edit that reply...unless it's by me. In other words this seems an overly complicated system you have here. Simple tasks are given new words so that's not even easy to find out how to do things that are easy on other sites...like replying to comments. Unrelated to this site, but it's also annoying that sites differ in their markup codes...why does every site require its own way of doing things? It's just reinventing the wheel...and the wheel works fine just as it is! re emblem chasing...yeah, getting the whole set looks a massive chore. Probably won't do that...hopefully after my grand Chicken run I'll only have a few to get and I MIGHT chase them...one of these days. It sort of looks set up to cater to people playing in a particular way, but getting better at it. E.g.a few emblems have a high kill count but have slight variations in things like Alert phases or whatnot. Since I've played this series since MGS2 and had an official guide book for that game, I'm familiar with the gameplay philosophy behind it, so even on my first playthrough I got 0 kills...did use Rations though, as it seemed too hard to progress without that first time...think that that was the only thing I did which didn't meet the usual highest emblem criteria. It's just too much of an imposition to play the game multiple times in a similar way with slight variations in order to get the emblem and reward...you get an iPod tune if you have the entire set of Emblems. It really doesn't seem worth it to me...too much trouble. re Otacon help with Vamp fight...hmm...think I Codec'd him and got no useful advice...apart from "kill him"! Thanks Otacon! That's annoying...missing out on something which may work because you got no help the first time you tried it. Also annoying in my grand Chicken run now, on hard, is that I don't know how I am faring so far...and I'm replaying stuff coz if I hit Continue, I'm assuming that any work I've made towards acquiring emblems has gone down the drain...but someone told me that is not so...so, just really annoying and grinding doing this. P.S. you still have well camoflaged headers on this page, e.g. the one for "Forums"...the ENTIRE line of links in that is hard to see...you could miss knowing that they are there because they are so hard to see...just make them stand out better. Dfle3 07:05, April 22, 2012 (UTC) ::Sorry, but I cannot help you with how the site functions in regards to forums. You could try contacting Wikia directly to see if they can do anything about it. Also, I can assure you that Wikipedia functions in exactly the same way regarding comments and signatures. I would also prefer if it functioned like standard forums on other sites, but it's better than nothing I guess. However, user blogs seem to have the feature of replying to specific comments, and automatically logging the user doing so, so maybe the system could be tranferred? I'll have to look into it. As for the navigation bar at the top, I will try and modify it, but I will need to research the proper coding for this. ::Re: the Vamp fight, it's possible that Otacon contacts you automatically after taking down Vamp several times, or perhaps you have to contact him multiple times before he has the answer. Again, I'm assuming it's Otacon, and not Campbell who does so. ::--Bluerock 10:39, April 22, 2012 (UTC) I wouldn't even know where to begin contacting Wikia! Presumably you'd be a lot more competent than me in modifying this site on the assumption that you read good ideas for making the site more 'user friendly'. Perhaps you could ask Wikia how to implement these ideas...if you think they are worthwhile? re Navigation bar at the top...it just needs some legible text...or change the background...e.g. white text, or a lighter background...just so that the bar isn't invisible to people who may find the links useful in it. re Wikipedia...I think I've edited stuff in there, hardly much, but I don't remember having to put my sig in my edit...assuming it was added automatically...been a while since I used that site that way...don't normally do that kind of stuff on it. re Otacon tips...every time I 'killed' Vamp, he congratulated me. If I did codec Otacon, I don't recall getting useful advice. That's my point, really...if you codec him once and he gives you no useful information at all, why assume that repeating the process will be more successful next time? It's just bad game design, I think. Dfle3 07:02, April 23, 2012 (UTC) ::I will look into the Wikia thing, but I don't have much confidence that what you're suggesting is possible, especially since it is a universal feature across all the wikis. ::Yeah, white text for the navigation bar buttons sounds sensible; it's just knowing how to correctly implement the coding, which few users here know how to do. ::I am 100% certain I was given a hint direvtly from the game about using the syringe on Vamp, after multiple attempts at getting his Life gauge to zero. Also, contacting radio support multiple times to glean more info has been present throughout the whole series, but the drastic reduction of Codec dialogue in MGS4 made this less apparent in that game. ::--Bluerock 08:32, April 23, 2012 (UTC) Forget which specific suggestion of mine you are saying you aren't sure is possible, but I think a distinction between contributions made on the Wiki and those made in forums is important...there's just no need for me to be able to edit other people's comments in the forums (or vice versa) or to get the entire thread come up on my screen when I wish to reply to a particular comment. re Navigation bar at the top...it's not nessarily about having the text in white...more about making sure that there is a contrast between the text and the background, which there isn't at the moment. Have discussed issues to do with colour use in other forums but aren't sure if they 'translate' to Wikia...e.g. have heard of hexadecimal code for colouring text etc...and the method to apply them...do have some notes on these, if it is useful to you. re Codec...doing the grand Chicken run now, I'm using Codec more now...there does appear to be quite a bit of content and apparently there are some Easter egg conversations if you use this feature at certain points in the game...from memory, one of them is after the Crying Wolf fight...but you have to be in a particular location to trigger this. Never really made a point of checking out the Codec before in the game...might now, just to be 'completist'. I'm not very good at reading edits...I got notifications of you making edits to entries I contributed to in the walkthrough...what exactly? Format changes? Like I said, not very good at deciphering that kind of stuff. ::I know about hexadecimal code, I just need to find a wat to implement it correctly. The edits that I made to the walkthrough pages were removing your signatures (which are only required for talk pages/forums), and adding a navigation template http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Template:TBE-walkthru-nav for the individual pages of that walkthrough. I also fixed some spelling and removed a lot of redundant wikia coding that somehow got in there. --Bluerock 07:55, April 24, 2012 (UTC)